Celebrating Our Graduates
Eighty-two Capital Region BOCES Career and Technical School students from the Center for Advanced Technology at Mohonasen campus received certificates of completion, honors and awards during a June 15 ceremony.
With parents, friends, school and BOCES administrators cheering while watching on live stream, students from the Mohonasen, Niskayuna, Shenendehowa, Cobleskill-Richmondville, Schalmont and a host of other districts were celebrated.
The ceremony marked the completion of one- and two-year programs at the school, including machining and manufacturing, video game design, sterile processing, entertainment technology, welding and metal fabrication and engineering technology
Bright Futures
Speaker after speaker praised the graduates for going above and beyond to secure bright futures.
Career and Technical Education Director Jeff Palmer praised the resiliency students have shown in learning hands-on skills in the midst of a pandemic.
“Your ability to navigate the curveball thrown at you is amazing. You should be proud of all you have accomplished,” Palmer said.
Meanwhile, Principal Makensie Bullinger focused on the bright futures the graduates have ahead of them thanks to their time at BOCES.
“Through the years you have learned that Career and Technology Education, in collaboration with its business and community partners, provides you with the necessary education opportunities to graduate and be college and career ready,” Bullinger said. “You have been prepared and empowered with on-the-job training and classwork that resulted in development and refinement of skills and industry connections.”
Many of our graduates are going on to college and trade schools; still others are going straight into the workforce thanks to the skills they learned and the connections they made at BOCES.
Among them is manufacturing Cardell Iarusso who landed a job with Altamont Spray Welding as a result of their program internship. Iarusso will work there while attending the manufacturing program at Hudson Valley Community College.
“It’s great to have been hired by Altamont [Spray Welding] because of the skills I directly learned here and the internship I had there,” said Iarusso, who attended BOCES from Mohonasen.
Additionally, graduates Abigail Black and Carrera Meyer-Hill, both from Mohonasen, have been hired to work part-time at Albany Medical Center as sterile processing technicians while they pursue college educations in the medical field.
“It’s pretty cool that I am in a job in the medical field that will help me improve my career options,” said Black, who is attending Hudson Valley Community College for a degree in nursing.
“This is a real world job that we were able to get directly as a result of a course we took in high school. That is pretty amazing,” added Meyer-Hill, who is attending SUNY Schenectady County Community College in pursuit of a career as a surgical tech.
Campus-Wide Awards
Awards were handed out during the graduation ceremonies ranging from college scholarships to program awards. Below is list of scholarship recipients.
Gregory J. Knorr Memorial Scholarship – Taylor Reed, Entertainment Technology, Schenectady
Area III SkillsUSA Scholarship – Robert R.J. Porter, Welding and Metal Fabrication, Cobleskill-Richmondville
SkillsUSA Student of the Year – Jacob Woodward, Welding and Metal Fabrication, Niskayuna
Outstanding Student of the Year Award 2021 – Noel Lyman, Entertainment Technology, Mohonasen
Read about program awards recipients from the Center for Advanced Technology @ Mohonasen.
Watch a Replay of the June 15 Albany Career & Technical School/Center for Advanced Technology Graduations
A.M./Morning Student Ceremony
P.M./Afternoon Student Ceremony